Tokyo Airport Collision: Did air traffic control give green signal to both JAL jet and coast guard plane?

Investigation for finding the actual cause of collision between Japan Airlines Flight 516 and a coast guard jet at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport has been picking up pace. However, there have been discrepancies between the accounts given by an air traffic controller and the captain of a Japan coast Guard plane. NHK in a report quoted a transport ministry source saying air traffic controller cleared the Japan Airlines plane to land on runway C, and instructed the coast guard aircraft to stay short of it, but a source from the Coast Guard said its pilot had received the green light to take off. More details would come to fore following the recovery of the black box. NHK said an investigator with the Japan Transport Safety Board confirmed officials have recovered the black box of the Japan Coast Guard plane, while that of the JAL plane is yet to be found. Investigators had examined the fuselages of both aircrafts as well as their scattered debris and now they will attempt to retrieve data from the recovered device. Investigators had found signs of impact on the fuselage of each aircraft, but they could not yet confirm whether it was due to the two planes colliding. Five of the six people aboard the Japan Coast Guard plane were killed, while the captain sustained serious injuries. The aircraft, carrying emergency goods for disaster-hit areas from Monday’s earthquake, was preparing to fly to Niigata Prefecture from Haneda airport. Meanwhile, all 379 on board JAL escaped via evacuation slides. Fourteen of them have seen doctors for bruises or other conditions. The JAL Airbus A350, coming from New Chitose Airport in the northern prefecture of Hokkaido, collided with the Coast Guard aircraft around 6 pm (local time) on Tuesday.